


Early Retirement

by CaptainLeBubbles



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 05:01:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3678570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLeBubbles/pseuds/CaptainLeBubbles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood Gulch is pretty dull after his last mission. Luckily the natives are friendly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Early Retirement

**Author's Note:**

> I just really like thinking about Florida's time with the Blue Team.

Butch has been in Blood Gulch for the better part of a month, and honestly he thinks he'd go mad if the natives weren't so adorable. Well, if Sarge weren't so adorable. He has yet to meet Sarge's privates, so he doesn't know about them.

(He hasn't met Sarge's other soldiers either, he thinks, and giggles at his own terrible joke.)

(He really misses Reggie now.)

It's hard to think of his new assignment as an actual military mission. Sure, he has to protect the Alpha (now called Church; Butch thinks maybe the Director should have put a little effort into convincing him he was named something else because if the Freelancers who are looking for him manage to catch wind of a simulation trooper named Leonard Church they're sure to catch on that there's something amiss.) but the sim troopers that the Director sent here to occupy him are so laughably inept that there's hardly any real danger. He doubts they could even kill each other, let alone him.

Still, it's nice to have the chance to relax, and, as has been previously mentioned, Sarge is adorable.

Also, he finally has time to knit.

He's knitting now, in fact. Sarge had snuck into Blue base; fortunately Church and Tucker were up at the cliffs spying on Privates Grif and Simmons (Butch loved his privates, but sometimes he needed to be alone) and so there was no chance of Sarge hurting them when he came in. It was just the two of them.

He'd found Butch in the common room, knitting something colorful while he hummed cheery music, and wasted no time in leveling his shotgun on Butch's head. Butch had carried on knitting; Sarge, too caught up in crowing his victory, hasn't yet noticed this.

This is what Butch means about Sarge being adorable. Butch has already counted twenty three ways to take Sarge out before he even has a chance to fire, and Sarge hasn't even considered the possibility. He has his shotgun: his target is before him. Therefore, he is victorious. Butch would have never let a target dangle this long. Kill them quickly, that's his way. Don't give them a chance to start counting ways of disarming and defeating you.

“And another thing,” Sarge says, because he takes this Red and Blue thing very seriously, “why is it that the sky has to be _blue_? Why can't it be a shade of red? Oh, sure, we get pink and orange if the sun rises right, but those barely count as shades of red.”

_Adorable_ .

“Anyway, that's all I've got to say on the matter,” he concludes, finally. Butch doesn't look at his time display; he knows without checking that Sarge has been talking for two hours, forty seven minutes, and fourteen seconds. Who knew one man would find so much to say before pulling the trigger and destroying enemy for good? “Got any last words, Bluebelly?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” Butch looks up, and sets his knitting needles aside. Sarge's timing is perfect, he's just finished his knitting, and just in time. He holds it up. “I made you a scarf. Do you like it?”

Sarge stands there, staring in what is probably shock (Butch can't quite read the expressions beneath helmets the way so many others can, but in this case it's not hard to guess). Butch gets to his feet and moves to wrap the scarf (it's red, the same deep shade as Sarge's armor, and why hadn't Sarge noticed?) around his neck, looping it carefully so that it won't snag in his armor. It's laughable, really: there is no need for any sort of winter wear in Blood Gulch, where the temperature never drops below twenty-six degrees.

Sarge makes a confused noise and touches the scarf at his throat. “What is this?” he asks. “Some kind of bribe to save your own Blue hide?”

The number of ways Butch has counted to take Sarge out of the equation has gone up into triple-digits. He smiles behind his helmet, amused. So adorable.

“Sure,” he says. “Will you let me live now?”

Sarge fingers the scarf thoughtfully, and finally grunts. “All right. You'll live to fight another day. I'll allow it, just this once.”

“Gee Sarge, I sure am grateful to you for the mercy you've shown.”

The grin behind Butch's helmet when Sarge finally makes his farewells and heads back to his own base is genuine, and that surprises him. He hasn't grinned this hard in ages, not since the Project started falling apart around them (yet another reason to be grateful for this reassignment; now he doesn't have to babysit the other Freelancers).

Butch hums and sits down to get back to his knitting. He's thinking he'll knit Sarge a cap, next.


End file.
